Seasons greetings to you all and I hope you are all ready and prepared for the big day. As this is my last blog for 2024, I’ve decided to have a look back at some of this year’s highlights and changes that have happened over the past 12 months, here at Wingham Wildlife Park.
January
What a way to kick start 2024, by welcoming 2 more male Rothschild’s giraffes. George and Henry arrived to us from Belfast Zoo and straight away everyone fell in love with them. It wasn’t hard to tell them apart at all given the fact that Henry was TINY compared to his 3 other compatriots. So tiny he surprised everyone when they first set eyes on him, magical moment! Having settled in well over night they were then introduced properly to Robin and Ruedi the next morning. They are all doing so well and bonding beautifully as a tower.
We started doing capybara experiences with our herd. Marie, Rio, Papuri and Jari have all settled in and love getting up close and personal in the experiences. They also have access to part of the lake with a view of giving them full access at some point in 2025.
February
This news brought a lot of excitement when it was announced that the Tropical house would be back open for business, however there was a slight difference to what it was before. Our Bird Keepers had been working hard by training our flock of rainbow lorikeets for public feeding and all that hard work has paid off. If you haven’t experienced this yet, then you need to get down there, you can purchase lorikeet food from a keeper inside the Tropical House where you can feed the birds and get an even better look at them while they sit on your hand.
March
This month we celebrated World Frog Day, our amphibians that we currently hold at the park are in the reptile house and this is somewhere you need to visit. In there you will find the ‘Frog Room’, this room houses our critically endangered lemur leaf frogs. It has been set up to create the perfect temperature and humidity for the frogs and they have their very own rain system. Although you cannot enter the room itself, you are able to view our frogs from the large viewing window at the front. If you’re good at hide and seek you should be able to spot 1 or 2 of our frogs hanging out on the leaves, incredibly well camouflaged.
April
The carnivore team had a busy month celebrating birthdays of a few animals on the section. Luna the black female Jaguar turned 13, male Cheetah Colonel Tom turned 4 and Artic Wolf brothers turned 5. April saw us welcome a new male Goeldi’s monkey, Eugene from Shaldon Wildlife Trust, fingers crossed his new girlfriend Ebony approves of this match.
May
We had two new additions to our WWP family, Pigeon and Podrick our two Humboldt penguin chicks, these 2 chicks takes our colony up to 17 individuals. Both have been doing really well under the care of their parents Mumble & Pingu and Lily & Palamedes. The Bird section had another new addition in the form of a female pink backed Pelican called Florida.
June
More news that brought a lot of excitement when the Lemur Walkthrough had been opened back up after its brand new refurbishment. The ring-tailed lemurs have a brand new, larger indoor house built with lots of improvements also being made to their outside walkthrough enclosure to make it a better experience for both our animals and our visitors alike. This news meant we gained for 4 new faces to the park, Maki, Monty, Scruff and Armi. These 4 brothers came to us from Africa Alive in Suffolk and they have all settled in very well.
July
As many of you will know we are lucky enough to be home to three Bornean orangutans, Molly, Belayan, Jin. However in July, three became four and we welcomed Awan to us from Monkey World. Molly and Belayan, Jin and Awan were paired up and introduced to one another, all the introductions have gone well and romance is in the air. This is great news for the conservation of this critically endangered species as they face threats from deforestation of their natural habitat and human conflicts. July also saw a return of a species to the park that we had when I first started here, black and white ruffed lemurs. Rahona, Remmy and Dubh came to us from Fota Wildlife Park in Ireland.
August
A bittersweet moment came this month when little Baloo, the first moon bear born here at Wingham Wildlife Park flew the nest. He has moved up north to a brand new, beautiful habitat at Five Sisters Zoo in Scotland. I haven’t had the chance to go up there yet, but I intend to go and see him. As the summer gets into full flow, Boyce and Marlene the park’s grey crowned cranes hatched out three, fluffy, golden chicks.
September
More penguin chicks hatched out, Piccolo and Peri our two latest Humboldt penguins to the park, taking the colony’s total up to 19 individuals. We celebrated Iguana Awareness Day, International Red Panda Day and International Primate Day this month.
October
We said ‘Guten Tag’ to Lonan, our latest species to be added to the park from Karlsruhe Zoo in Germany. This little fellow is a Geoffroy’s cat, a species found in South America and he has settled in very well. Back in April you might remember we welcomed Eugene and matched him up with Ebony. I can confirm it was very successful as we’ve had a baby Goeldi’s monkey born, now nearly 3 months old, it’s doing very well and you might be able to notice it off mums back a bit more.
November
This month was a slightly quieter one on the animal front, however with Christmas around the corner and the weather on the turn, there are always lots of things to do for us keepers that certainly keep us all very busy.
December
Margaret, our newest addition to the chimpanzee family, celebrated her 1st birthday on 3rd December, what an incredible year watching her grow, explore, and charm everyone she meets. Since they came to us in 2016, we have welcomed two new additions to our troop; Elizabeth, who is 6 years old and now her younger sister, Margaret. We announced after many days of online polling that our newest baby macaque’s name is Kevin. All still fresh in our mind is the sad passing of Blade, I knew him when he first arrived to us at just 2 weeks old. Caring for Blade has been a privilege for all of us here at the park and it is a comfort in this difficult time to know that he had a good life with us. We will miss him enormously.
2025 promises to be another exciting year at the park as we continue to make improvements, as always, watch this space. Thanks for taking the time to read my final blog of the year, I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
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